Not content with signing up a deal with Arsenal, Sega have agreed to sponsor French club, St Etienne and Italian Serie B outfit, Sampdoria. "Sega are looking forward to a great season and to Sampdoria's return to Serie A, where together we hope to enjoy many years of mutual success," said Sega's European CEO, Jean-Francois Cecillion. Let's hope Sega's relationship with Sampdoria lasts longer than David Platt's stint as manager. Of Sampdoria. Not Sega.

Game Boy Color (that's Colour) is going from strength to strength. Nintendo's handheld sold a phenomenal 720,000 units in 1998 – due mainly to the fact that the GBC was released. Nintendo expect to sell almost a million units this year. With GBC-specific titles filtering through and increased support from third-party developers, the future looks rosy for the little fellow. You can get different colour cases now, too.

Tempers flared at the start of the week on the Future Gamer Chat Forum as some users received their weekly fix of FG a little later than they usually do - these guys are addicts and you simply cannot keep them waiting for their stuff! "Which is the greatest games company in the whole wide world?" cried 'Tek' (once we had all calmed down). All the expected names were thrust forward - Nintendo, Square, Rare, Konami, Titus…TITUS?!? One user claimed that after the fantastic 'achievement' that is the new N64 game Superman (see review elsewhere in this issue), they simply must be hailed as one of the best there is. Well, the game is certainly an achievement - just getting it past Nintendo's quality control is quite a feat in itself. The Future Gamer Clan is getting stronger by the week, and they are still looking for more players. The scope of the games is also widening to suit all tastes and ages. Apparently the [FGC] Delta Force squad is currently in unstoppable form (even if they do say so themselves!), so why not drop into the Forum, challenge them and knock them down a peg or two? It's the least they deserve. 'Macca' has also started organising regular Half-Life tournaments on GUN (Games United Network) so drop in for more details on this. Finally this week there was a thought-provoking debate on the future of the Dreamcast, consisting of postings along the lines of "The Dreamcast is Crap!" and "No it isn't!" That one really got the grey matter working overtime.

After England's diabolical performance in the Cricket World Cup, many of us thought we could do better. Now we have a chance to prove it, thanks to Empire’s International Cricket Captain 2 demo. If that’s not your bag, why not have a go at the fiendish Pandora’s Box from Tetris creator, Alexey Pajitnov? Download them now from the Future Gamer website. New additions to the Hints and Tips database include Puyo Puyo 4 on the Dreamcast, X Games Pro Boarder on PC, Chocobo Racing on the PlayStation and the laughable Rampage 2: Universal Tour on N64. And as if that's not enough, we've also got patches and upgrades for all the latest PC games.